With Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Square Enix has closed the Final Fantasy XIII chapter and is moving on. Just kidding, of course it isn't. Hope you like reading and words and stuff!

Much like with the Final Fantasy X series that got a 30 minute audio drama after-story, the Final Fantasy XIII series now has its own extra epilogue in the form of a 3-part short novella that is included in this week's and will be included in upcoming issues of Weekly Famitsu.

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[Photo: Toshi Nakamura]

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The epilogue, titled Final Fantasy XIII Reminiscence – tracer of memories – is written by veteran video game scenario writer Daisuke Watanabe, a man who has headed the writing for multiple Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts games.

FFXIII Reminiscence takes place after the events of Lightning Returns with the protagonist as a reporter who has been following the mystery of mutual "memories of another world" that seem to be shared by many people. The story is written in a first-person perspective with the reporter talking with several people who were closely involved with the events that happened over the video game series as they gradually lead her towards the truth, i.e. Lightning.

In Part 1, the reporter talks with Hope Estheim, Sazh and Dajh Katzroy, the members of the team Nora – Gadot, Yuj, Lebreau, and Maqui – and Serah Farron. The talks are basically the characters recalling what happened in the Final Fantasy XIII games. The whole thing is mostly a recap of the games but made more interesting because they're told from different characters' perspectives, giving the games' stories a more personal touch that fills them out nicely.

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So far, the novella acts more as a supplementation to the game series than an actual after-story. Parts 2 and 3 are scheduled to be included with the next 2 issues of Weekly Famitsu. Part 1 is 35 pages, all walls of Japanese text completely sans pictures, so it's more of an advanced reading that will be difficult for non-fluent people to access.

At the moment, Final Fantasy XIII Reminiscence – tracer of memories – is only available in Weekly Famitsu, with no word on a general release or an English version.